172 Seawater. 



» 



The inside of the bones of sheep s legs furnish a sort of 

 membranous glue, which supplies, with advantage, the place 

 of isinglass in the fabrication of silk stuflFs. 



I give you these particulars, not because I think they contain 

 any thing new to you, in principle, but because I may have 

 hit upon some details with which you were unacquainted. 



Art. XX. Experiments made in France upon the Use of 

 Distilled Seawater for domestic purposes, and its Effects 

 on the Constitution^ when taken as a Beverage,^ 



JLN consequence of the great want of good fresh water in 

 many of the maritime parts of France, the government some 

 time since ordered some experiments to be made, upon an ex- 

 tensive scale, in order to ascertain how far seawater, when 

 distilled, could be used with success. Little or no use had 

 hitherto been made of water so prepared, except in long voy- 

 ages, and chiefly then only as a matter of necessity. There 

 are above two hundred leagues of seacoast in France, where, 

 to the breadth of many miles, the inhabitants are compelled to 

 make use of bad and impure water, which, in many cases, is 

 injurious to the health of themselves and their animals. In 

 similar cases, it was the custom of the ancients to construct 

 cisterns ; but these are not only expensive in themselves, but 

 their utility depends upon the quantity of rain that falls ; while 

 upon the shores of the most barren places, nature has sup- 

 plied a variety of vegetable matter, which, when dried, would 

 not only serve as a fuel for the purposes of distillation, but 

 from the ashes of which might be obtained a saline substance, 

 suflicient to repay the expense of collecting, drying, and burn- 

 ing. Thus the fuel for the distillation of seawater would, in 

 reality, cost nothing, while its preparation would employ many 

 individuals, particularly women and children. Before, how- 



* Taken from the Philosophical Magazine, and by that work from the Annales 

 de Chimie and de Physique, fop January, 1818. 



